**Ok... stupid me, I had a total brain fart and for some reason thought Cui was part of the Ginyu Force. (Rolls eyes at own stupidity) So, I went back and replaced Cui with Burter. I do apologize if you read this and was like... "what the hell is maymayB doing?" Yeah...

Hi guys. Here's the next chapter for you. Again, lot's of info going on in this chapter (especially at the end). Please let me know if you have any questions. I do have to thank my husband, who is not a fanfic reader, he helped me come up with some of the plot detail as to why Vegeta is on this mission.

Thank you so much for your reviews! They keep me going! You all are kind and at times make me laugh with your awesome reviews. Honestly, you guys make my day! Thank you!

Also, Destiny Lost Book 2, Chapter One has been posted... just saying =)

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ or it's Characters.

Vegeta took his phone out of his pocket. He looked back up at the rear view mirror and quickly texted the license plate number of the car to Eighteen:

87TY8W. Who is he? And why is he tailing me?

Vegeta turned down Main Street and found a parking lot next to the restaurant he and Bulma used to go to all the time. As he got out, his phone buzzed.

Checking now, Sir.

Vegeta grunted, shoved his phone back into his pocket, and opened the door for Bulma. She gave him a slight smile as she looked at the building he parked next to.

She arched an eyebrow at him. "Luigi's?"

Vegeta nodded. "It's been a while since I've had a decent plate of pasta." He smirked at her and motioned for her to lead the way. As she stepped in front of him, heading towards the restaurant, Vegeta looked over his shoulder. The green mustang that had followed them from Bulma's house was now parked across the street. The unknown occupant still in the car.

The place was busy, but the two of them only had to wait five minutes to get a table.

As the hostess showed them to their table, Vegeta kept tabs on the mystery person in the green mustang through the large windows of the restaurant. So far, nobody had exited the vehicle.

Too distracted, he was unable to catch Bulma as she sat at chair that was facing the entrance. He mentally cursed and sat down, his back now facing the door.

He sat down, and instantly felt tense. He hated not being able to see who was coming in and who was coming out. He looked over his shoulder and grumbled under his breath.

Their waitress came scurrying up to them. The poor thing was frazzled, having to wait on a larger crowd than she was used to.

"Can I get some drinks started for you?" She said, trying to find a pen in her apron.

"I'll have a beer."

"Make that two." Vegeta said, again, looking over his shoulder.

The woman nodded and walked off to take another order.

"What's your deal?" Bulma asked, cocking her head to the side.

"Huh?" Vegeta said, still looking over his shoulder.

"You seem paranoid."

Vegeta turned back around. "I don't like having my back to the door."

Bulma looked at him, as if he was a crazy person. "Well," She stood up from her chair. "I'll switch you. If it'll make you stop acting like someone's out to get you." She walked over to Vegeta, who was giving her a look of annoyance. "Scoot!" She swatted at him playfully and smiled when he did as he was told.

He sat in his new chair, and felt at ease once his back was not facing the door.

Bulma shook her head at him.

The waitress dropped their drinks off, telling them she'd be back to get their order.

"So," Bulma grabbed the beer in front of her and took a sip. "Are you going to tell me what you've been up to now, or is it up to me to guess?"

Vegeta blankly stared at her, he too taking a large sip of beer.

"You're not going to make this easy on me, are you?" Bulma sighed.

"Nope." Vegeta deadpanned.

"Alright." Bulma drummed her fingers on the table top. "Are you married?"

He chuckled . "No."

"So that rules out the first rumor."

Vegeta quirked an eyebrow at her statement, but she continued her interrogation before he could ask what she meant. "Girlfriend, roommate, friends with benefits?"

"I am not romantically involved with anyone. I do not have a roommate, unless you count my goldfish. Friends with benefits? No." He smirked at her.

Bulma nodded, relieved. "Ok." She thought of the next question she was going to ask. What she really wanted to ask was where he went the night of prom... but knowing Vegeta, her best bet was to ease into it. "Tell me about your work."

Vegeta's left eye twitched. He took another gulp of beer. "I own my own company."

"Really? How many people work for you?" Bulma asked. She placed her elbows on the table, taking interest in what he had to say.

"It's only myself and my assistant."

Bulma waited, expecting for him to elaborate, but soon remembered who she was dealing with. As she opened her mouth to ask another question, Vegeta cut her off.

"You got married." His voice was calm, but had a twinge disappointment.

Bulma jerked back slightly in her chair. Not a lot of people knew about that part of her life. "Um, yeah."

"And?"

She tucked a piece of blue hair behind her ear. "I met him in college. It was a year or two after you left. He was persistent, asked me out for a year. Finally I said yes. We dated... and after a few months he asked me to marry him." She rolled her eyes and swirled the beer in the mug she was holding onto. She kept her eyes on the swirling liquid... this was not something she thought she would be telling her long lost love about. She sighed heavily and shrugged. "Not being happy at how things weren't going as planned...I said yes and after a few months I came to realize that he wasn't what I wanted." He wasn't you. She looked up at him. "So, I had the marriage annulled and moved back home."

Vegeta could see the hurt in her eyes. His decision to leave still affected her. In a sense he altered her life. Ever since he knew her, she already knew what she wanted to do with her life, a marine biologist. He had witnessed dozens of arguments between her and her father about her decision. Her father felt that she would be wasting her natural genius, and talent on such a dumb profession, and that she should come to work at his company and put her brain to good use.

"And that's why you are now second in command at Capsule Corp." It wasn't a question.

Bulma nodded. "I'm happy though... In a way."

Vegeta reached into his pocket, feeling his phone vibrate and took it out. "Excuse me." He mumbled as he opened the text from Eighteen.

Sir, car belongs to goon named Burter. He is one out of a team of five hit men from a competing firm. I am unable to find out why he is there.

Vegeta ground his teeth and stuffed his phone back into his pocket. He knew Burter. He was a total dick. But he also knew that if Burter was there, then his other four team members, known as the Ginyu Force, were close by as well. The five of them worked for Frieza Cold. He was a higher up in the military, who was rumored to be dirty... requesting hits that weren't sanctioned properly, getting rid of people who made his life and missions difficult for him. But he was good at covering up his tracks, making it impossible to pin the hit requests on him. Vegeta knew first hand that Frieza was bad news...

He scanned the busy restaurant, looking for the others.

Bulma narrowed her eyes at him, noticing that he was on edge. Vegeta looked back at her, dismissing the look of concern that she was giving him.

"Ohmigawd!"

Both Bulma and Vegeta turned their heads and simultaneously groaned. The tall, dark blue haired, big-boobed bimbo... also known as Maron stumbled to their table.

"Vegeta Ouji? Is it you? You're back! And look at you!" She sloppily took a sip of her martini, which was probably her third or fourth for the night. "I think you've gotten hotter!" The blue haired lady reached over and pinched Vegeta's cheek.

He batted her away, giving her a look of annoyance. Marron looked over to the other blue haired woman at the table.

"Oh. Hi Bulma." She sneered and looked back over to Vegeta.

Bulma rolled her eyes at the woman.

"So, what have you been up to? What do you do for a living, Vegeta?"

"I'm a door to door vacuum salesman." He deadpanned.

Maron stared at him wide eyed for a moment and then burst out laughing. "Oh Vegeta, you're so funny!" She caressed his bicep and winked at him. "Save a dance for me at the reunion." She gave Bulma a sideways glance and then blew a kiss at Vegeta. "Bye!"

The two of them watched her stumble back to the bar and shared a good laugh when Maron promptly fell on her ass while trying to climb back onto her bar stool.

The waitress took their orders and brought their food out, all the while the two engaged in small talk, conversing about how much their home town had changed as well as the people in it. Bulma filled him in on who got married, divorced, who was in jail and who got knocked up.

Vegeta rolled his eyes. "I didn't think Kakarot had it in him."

Bulma twirled her spaghetti onto her fork. "Yeah, well, the two of them apparently got really drunk the night of prom."

He scoffed. "Please, we got drunk plenty of times and we did it like stoned test bunnies, but I managed not to knock you up."

Bulma almost spit out the meatball she was currently chewing, trying to stifle a giggle. Vegeta smirked at her.

She swallowed her food. "True... those were the days."

Vegeta nodded slightly. "Yes, they were."

Bulma sighed and put her fork down. "I have your stuff."

"Come again?"

Bulma hesitated. She was regretting her sudden outburst. "A few weeks after you disappeared, your father packed your room up and tossed it onto the front yard. I got a phone call from your mom telling me to pick it up, because your father was threatening to set it on fire." She bit her lip nervously. She knew Vegeta Sr. was a touchy subject. "At that point, we weren't sure if you were going to come back, so Goku and I got your stuff and put it in my attack, just in case you ever did."

He ran a hand through his thick head of hair. When he left, the only thing he had on him was his wallet, keys and clothes on his back.

Bulma continued. "I think your mom knew that someday you'd come back, and she knew that I'd keep your things safe for you."

Vegeta nodded.

"Would you like to take it? I think there are ten boxes in total."

"I'll go through them, I'm sure half the stuff is trash anyway."

Vegeta looked at Bulma. He wanted to ask about his mother. How she died. But he couldn't bring himself to ask.

With dinner finished and paid for, Vegeta and Bulma walked outside, towards Vegeta's car.

The green mustang still sat across the way, Burter's figure sat patiently in the driver's seat, all the windows down in the vehicle. Vegeta could see his head turning, watching as he walked down the street to the parking lot. He almost flinched when he saw Burter pointing at Vegeta, forming his fingers to look like a gun and acted as if he pulled the trigger. His ugly smile after he did so made Vegeta want to pull the gun that was concealed on his hip out and shoot the ugly fucker in the face.

Vegeta quickly ushered Bulma to his car. As he grabbed his keys out of his pocket he intentionally dropped them on the concrete.

"Whoops." He said half heartedly said as he dropped to the concrete and looked underneath his car and the surrounding area, making sure Burter or the Ginyu force hadn't placed a bomb or tracking device on it.

Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he swiped his keys off of the ground and stood back up. He unlocked the door, letting Bulma enter first as he lingered by his opened door, looking at Burter.

Vegeta gave him a stony glare and then got into his Challenger. He barely kept his eyes on the road as he continuously looked up at his rearview mirror, checking to see if Burter or anyone else was following.

They weren't.

Which made Vegeta even more suspicious.

They made it back to Bulma's, and he accepted her offer to come in, only to make sure there wasn't anyone waiting for her when she entered. He kept telling himself it was just because he wanted to make any one of the members of the Ginyu Force was waiting for her... trying to steal his job from him, seeing as the bounty on her pretty head was three million dollars.

His reasoning was only partially true... True, he didn't want her to fall victim to any of those idiots. And yes, he was still on the fence about the whole thing... Still waiting on Eighteen to tell him the full story as to why she had a price on her head... But spending time with her had only made the old feelings that he had buried deep inside of him start to sprout back up.

He stood in the doorway to the kitchen, doing a quick scan on the surrounding rooms, and watched as Bulma kicked her flats off of her feet and jumped up onto the kitchen counter.

"So... you gonna ask me to the reunion or what?"

Vegeta pushed off of the doorframe he was leaning up against, and took a step towards the counter she was atop of.

"Still the needy little woman, aren't you?" He scowled playfully.

Bulma smiled at him. "Needy? I don't think so. I think I deserve it... that and an explanation as to why you left me... and where you went, and why you never called, wrote, emailed..." She looked at him, her blue eyes drilling into his steely black ones.

"Now now, woman." He put his hands up semi defensively. "Let's not get a head of ourselves." He walked up next to her and leaned up against the counter. "How about I pick you up at five tomorrow."

"Umm, how about you come over around three. That way you can go through your stuff and then we go to the reunion from there. Deal?" She stuck her hand out.

He frowned at her hand, but took it any way, shaking it. "Deal."

"Maybe then you can explain yourself to me." Bulma gripped his hand tight attempting, feebly, to get her point across.

Vegeta looked down at their hands and then back up at her. "One thing at a time." He smirked at her. Their faces just inches from each others. "Good night."

Bulma let her hand linger on his. She knew she heard him say goodnight, but he wasn't making any movements to leave.

For a moment, it was as if they both were sucked back their high school days. Bulma, looking into his intense black eyes, which always made her weak at the knees. And, Vegeta getting lost in the depths of her cerulean iris's had him practically drooling to get a taste of her lips.

Throwing caution to the wind, Vegeta closed the small gap between them and crushed her lips against his. Bulma jumped slightly at the sudden attack on her lips but soon relaxed.

Unfortunately, as fast as the kiss happened, it ended. Vegeta back-pedaled a few steps away from her, his cheeks flushed.

"See you tomorrow." He quickly turned on his heel and all but ran out of the house and into his car, leaving Bulma wide eyed at what had just occurred.

Vegeta took off, back tires screeching as his car sped out of the driveway of Bulma's home and onto the steet.

Vegeta checked into his hotel room and promptly stashed various weapons all around the room. He then took a cold shower, trying to rid the thoughts of the blasted kiss he engaged with the woman.

When the cold shower was proving unsuccessful, he hoped out and slid a pair of loose fitting basketball short on, not bothering to dry off.

He sat cross legged on his bed and opened his laptop.

Eighteen, who had impeccable timing, sent a Skype request right as he logged onto his email.

Vegeta huffed, annoyed, and hit the accept button. "It's about damn time." He mumbled.

His assistants face came into view. The look of indifference and slight boredom graced her face as always as she greeted her boss.

"Sir, I've finally got the information you requested." Her eyes flickered to her boss's wet bare muscular chest and then brought her attention back to his annoyed face.

Vegeta crossed his arms and waiting for her to continue.

"It seems you were correct with your assumption. This hit was meant to make you squirm, in a sense. The hit request was sent from Frieza Cold." She paused, making sure her boss was following. "It seems that you've pissed him off."

"Yeah, no shit." He mumbled.

Three months ago, he had received a hit request. The client requested for the person in question to be killed ASAP, and that it didn't matter how they were killed either. The target's name was Marjory Clifton. She was the mistress to a wealthy business man who had friends in high places. Vegeta did his usual research on his target. Home address, place of work, daily routines, everything.

According to the dossier with Marjory's information, the wealthy business man, whose name Vegeta couldn't remember, had broken things off with Marjory. And, apparently Marjory wouldn't take no for an answer. The woman was stalking her ex lover, showing up at his daughters school, calling him at all hours of the night and even showed up at his door step, threatening to go public about their affair. When he refused to take her back, she then told him that she would leak confidential information to the media about the man's company.

According to the client, the news of the affair would be detrimental to the man's company, along with whatever the confidential information was that she had... Hence, the reason why Vegeta now held a red folder requesting her immediate disposal.

The only reason why Vegeta took the job was because of the threat of the man's little girl. He had his morals after all... if it weren't for the threat against the child, he would have tossed the request out the window.

When it came time to do his job, he found he was unable to follow through.

He now knew why she was stalking her ex lover... she was at least seven months pregnant.

After tailing her for a day or so, he found that she was dirt poor and expecting his baby. The second he found that she was pregnant, he dropped her like a bad habit and refused to acknowledge her and their child.

After digging a little deeper, he found that Marjory was her ex-lover's secretary and she surely had some major dirt on his company and its dealings with Frieza. Apparently Frieza had his dirty hands in arms dealing, in not just one country but numerous ones. Selling top of the line weapons to the enemy.

Vegeta killed many people of different shapes, sizes, nationalities and social status. But never has he killed a woman with child, and he wasn't planning on doing so either.

He returned to his office, telling Eighteen to relay the message that the mission was aborted and next time the client requests him to kill a pregnant woman in order to cover their own dirty tracks, they can go fuck themselves.

After a month, Vegeta received an unexpected visit from Frieza himself. He told him that he admired Vegeta for keeping his mouth shut about the information he found. Frieza then offered him a position on the Ginyu Force, telling him he'd get higher paying hits among other perks Vegeta could have given two shits about.

He declined. The only reason why he kept his mouth shut about his findings was because he didn't want to get involved. Especially with thinking about getting out of the business all together.

On top of all of that, Frieza's team were ruthless killers, not to mention the biggest bunch of asshole's, ever. They didn't care who the target was or if the target did anything wrong to be killed... no morals. And, Vegeta had more morals ironically.

Eighteen cleared her throat, seeing her boss was in deep thought.

Vegeta regained focus and nodded at her to continue.

"From what I gather, Frieza approached her to build him a weapon. When Ms. Briefs found out what his intentions were for said weapon, she halted all work on it."

"What's the weapon and what is he planning on doing with it?"

"Unknown at this time."

Vegeta huffed and told her to continue.

"I received word from his offices today, that if you kill Ms. Briefs, it means you are still loyal to your country and will continue to work for them."

"And if I refuse?"

"If you refuse, they will kill Ms. Briefs and you."

Vegeta rubbed his temples. What a fucking mess.

"Sir, we're in too deep, aren't we?"

He nodded. "Yes, Eighteen, yes we are. The asshole has already sent his men to shadow me... to make sure I complete the mission."

"You have time. They are giving you until Sunday to complete it."

Vegeta rubbed his chin. "Ok, that will give me some time to think. Until then, it's business as usual. I don't want them to think we are up to something. I'll call you when I've figured something out. But in the mean time, you may want to activate a few of the safe houses for me and for you as well."

Eighteen's eyes widened slightly, shining with excitement. She smirked. "Yes Sir." It had been a while since she'd seen some action.

"Don't get too excited, Eighteen."

Eighteen shook her head. "Of course not, Sir."

They signed off, Eighteen going right to work on her boss's request.

Vegeta on the other hand sat on his bed, his brain working a million miles a minute. The familiar dull ache of a migraine starting at the base of his skull.

He turned the lights off and lay back down, rubbing his eyes with the butts of his palms.

He needed to come up with a plan, fast. He was in deep, and wasn't sure what direction to go.

But one thing was for sure, Bulma Briefs was not going to die. He'd make sure of that.

beta'd by WithoutWingsX